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50 free Poltergeist trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
44 free Poltergeist trivia questions with answers. This Poltergeist trivia quiz digs into the 1982 film that made a generation afraid of static-filled televisions, clown dolls and backyard trees. It covers the Freeling family and Cuesta Verde, the medium Tangina and 'the Beast', the Oscar nominations it lost to E.T., and the long-running argument over who really directed it. It also goes beyond the first film: Poltergeist II and Reverend Kane, Poltergeist III in Chicago's John Hancock Center, the 2015 remake, the Showtime series that borrowed the name, and the tragedies that fed the legend of a 'Poltergeist curse'. A few questions cover the word itself and famous real-world cases like Enfield and the Bell Witch. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries the sentence that supports it, so the answer key is safe to argue over.
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Q 01Who is credited as director of the 1982 film Poltergeist?
Tobe Hooper
Spielberg wrote the story and produced but was contractually barred from directing while making E.T. The Directors Guild later investigated whether Hooper's credit was being undermined.
Q 02Steven Spielberg could not direct Poltergeist because he was contractually tied up making which film?
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
The two films opened a week apart in June 1982, and Poltergeist lost all three of its Oscar nominations to E.T.
Q 03Poltergeist grew out of a scrapped Spielberg project conceived as a horror sequel to which of his films?
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
The project was called Night Skies. Hooper was less keen on the sci-fi angle and proposed a ghost story instead; the alien side became E.T.
Q 04What is the name of the planned California community where the Freeling family lives?
Cuesta Verde
Steve Freeling sells houses in the development, which turns out to have been built over a cemetery whose gravestones, but not bodies, were relocated.
Q 05How old is Carol Anne Freeling in the original Poltergeist?
Five
Her siblings are eight-year-old Robbie and sixteen-year-old Dana. Heather O'Rourke, who played her, was six when the film came out.
Q 06Carol Anne first communicates with the spirits through which household object?
The television set
She talks to the post-broadcast static late at night, and later announces 'They're here' after an earthquake shakes the family awake.
Q 07What two-word line does Carol Anne deliver as the family is shaken awake by a quake?
"They're here."
The line became one of the most quoted in horror history and appears on the film's poster.
Q 08During the thunderstorm, Robbie is dragged out of his bedroom window by what?
The backyard tree
The tree tries to devour him before being sucked into a tornado. The clown doll gets its turn later, in a scene Scary Movie 2 parodied.
Q 09Who is the parapsychologist who arrives with assistants Ryan and Marty to investigate the Freeling house?
Dr. Martha Lesh
She was played by Beatrice Straight, who had won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Network in one of the shortest winning performances ever.
Q 10Which actress played Dr. Lesh, having earlier won an Oscar for Network?
Beatrice Straight
She won Best Supporting Actress for her scene as William Holden's betrayed wife. She was also a Tony winner.
Q 11What is the name of the diminutive spiritual medium Dr. Lesh calls in?
Tangina Barrons
Zelda Rubinstein, who stood 4 ft 3 in, played her in all three original films. Her closing verdict, 'This house is clean', is proved spectacularly wrong.
Q 12What does Tangina call the powerful demonic presence holding Carol Anne captive?
The Beast
The sequel reveals it to be the spirit of Henry Kane, an insane 19th-century preacher who led an apocalyptic cult.
Q 13The entrance to the spirits' dimension is in the children's closet; where is the exit?
The living room ceiling
Diane and Carol Anne drop through it onto the living room floor covered in ectoplasm.
Q 21Which actor, later Coach's Hayden Fox and the voice of Mr. Incredible, played Steve Freeling?
Craig T. Nelson
He won an Emmy for Coach and later played Zeek Braverman on Parenthood.
Q 22JoBeth Williams, who played Diane Freeling, made her feature debut in which 1979 Best Picture winner?
Kramer vs. Kramer
She played Dustin Hoffman's girlfriend, memorably quizzed by his son after walking to the bathroom nude. She later starred in The Big Chill.
Q 23The famous shot of Diane being dragged up the bedroom wall and across the ceiling was achieved how?
A static camera in a rotating set
Q 14Steve learns from his boss that the housing development was built on top of what?
A former cemetery
Only the headstones were moved. Bodies erupt from the muddy swimming-pool excavation in the climax; the burial-ground idea is a common misremembering.
Q 15Where does the Freeling family check in at the end, and what does Steve immediately remove from the room?
A Holiday Inn; the television
A sign there reads 'Welcome Doctor Fantasy and Friends', an inside joke: producer Frank Marshall performs magic for crews under the name Dr. Fantasy.
Q 16Poltergeist received three Academy Award nominations and lost every one of them to which film?
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
The categories were Original Score, Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects. It did win the BAFTA for Best Special Visual Effects.
Q 17Who composed the score for Poltergeist?
Jerry Goldsmith
He earned an Oscar nomination for it but lost to John Williams. His only win came in 1977 for The Omen.
Q 18The MPAA originally gave Poltergeist which rating before Spielberg and Hooper had it changed on appeal?
R
It ended up rated PG. The PG-13 rating did not exist until 1984, prompted partly by Spielberg's Temple of Doom and Gremlins.
Q 19Which studio released Poltergeist on June 4, 1982?
MGM/UA
It finished as the eighth-highest-grossing film of 1982 and the year's top horror film with about $76.6 million domestically.
Q 20Roughly how much did Poltergeist gross in the US, topping 1982's horror films?
$76.6 million
That put it eighth overall for the year, behind E.T., Tootsie and An Officer and a Gentleman among others.
The same trick Fred Astaire used for his ceiling dance in Royal Wedding decades earlier.
Q 24Where did the Chicago Film Critics Association rank Poltergeist among the scariest films ever?
20th
One scene also made Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments countdown.
Q 25The novelisation of Poltergeist, which extends the crawling-steak scene, was written by whom?
James Kahn
The book adds a benevolent spirit called the Waiting Woman and has Marty skeletonised by spiders and rats rather than tearing his own face off.
Q 26Who directed Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)?
Brian Gibson
Despite negative reviews it earned nearly $75 million worldwide and, like the original, picked up an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects.
Q 27In Poltergeist II, 'the Beast' is the spirit of an insane 19th-century preacher named what?
Henry Kane
Julian Beck's gaunt performance was his last.
Q 28Julian Beck, who played Reverend Kane, was best known for co-founding which avant-garde New York company?
The Living Theatre
He founded it with Judith Malina in 1947 and co-directed it until his death in September 1985, before the film's release.
Q 29In Poltergeist II, Steve becomes possessed after drunkenly swallowing what?
A mezcal worm
The possessed worm scene, and the creature Steve then vomits up, was designed with input from H. R. Giger.
Q 30Will Sampson (Poltergeist II's Taylor) was best known as Chief Bromden in which film?
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
He was on the rodeo circuit as a bronco buster when the producers went looking for a large Native American actor. He also played Ten Bears in Josey Wales.